iCry
by BeautifulxxDisasterx
Summary: Sam Puckett doesn't care. About absolutely anything. And she certainly doesn't cry. At least, that's what she makes everyone believe. Seddie Oneshot


**Summary: Sam Puckett doesn't care. About absolutely anything. And she certainly doesn't cry. At least, that's what she makes everyone believe. Seddie**

_Hii. Basically, I decided that I wanted to write a Sam breakdown scene because of her character dynamics. So here this goes, yes? Yes. _

_And just fyi, I'm pretending that Sam DOES NOT have a twin sister because I think that's stupid. Yeah._

_Disclaimer: I do not own iCarly._

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**iCry**

Sam Puckett doesn't care, and she certainly doesn't cry. She hasn't since she was 4 years old. She skinned her knee and immediately broke into sobs, only to have her father tell her that crying was only for babies. So she stopped.

She didn't cry 3 years later when her father walked out the door without so much as a goodbye. She didn't cry when her grandmother died. She didn't cry the first night her mom came home drunk. She didn't cry when she got her first 'F' or her first detention. She didn't cry when she found out Jonah never really cared. She didn't cry when Missy came to ruin her friendship with Carly. She didn't cry when her mom did all those nights.

Crying was for babies.

Instead, she stopped caring. She accepted crap as a part of life and decided that it was better to build herself up in a world of walls and fights and insults. That way, she didn't have to care, meaning she didn't have to get hurt, meaning she would never have to cry. And during those rare times when something penetrated her wall a little too much, and her heart broke a little bit, and she felt like crying, she took a deep breath, bit her lip, and pretended. When all else failed, she pretended. Eventually, she would even believe the lie herself.

She had quite the system going on, and never once did it fail her.

And that is exactly the Sam Puckett that Freddie Benson grew to know and love...as a friend, of course. They fought, they griped, they yelled, they pranked. They had this never-ending feud going on that no one, not even them, could really understand. But it was _their _thing. Freddie was a dork, Sam insulted him on a daily basis, and everything was good. It was not really the most normal of friendships in the world, but that was their friendship, and it really worked for them. Sure, everyone thought that Carly was the glue holding them together, but they knew that when it all came down to it, Carly was just a mutual friend, not their glue. They didn't really need glue, after all. They had their insults and teasing and fighting, their own way of showing some sort of...affection.

Today started off no differently.

It was a Saturday. A boring one, at that. Carly was off helping Spencer get supplies for his latest sculpture, leaving Freddie and Sam a few hours to themselves. They were residing in Freddie's room, Sam sitting in his swiveling desk chair, Freddie on his bed. Her arms rested on the ledge of the back support on the chair, her legs straddling the seat. She sighed, resting her chin on her arms.

"Fredward." she comments. He rolls his eyes.

"Yes, Sam?"

"I'm bored."

"What do you want _me_ to do about it?"

"I dunno. Figure out something for us to do. You're supposed to be the genius of this friendship." This earns a chuckle.

"Yeah, if I left being the genius to you, nothing would get done."

"I resent that, Benson."

"Good, Puckett."

And they share a smile.

It's carefree. It's light. They're just two friends hanging out on a boring Saturday. No big fights, no terrible insults. Sam thinks that some of their fighting has to do with Carly, but she can't really be sure of anything when it comes to Freddie.

"I know!" Freddie exclaims.

"Yes, genius?"

"We could-" He's interrupted by the loud chorus of Sam's favorite song as it comes singing into the room through her phone. She sighs.

"Hold that thought, Benson." Sam stands slightly as she reaches into the back pocket of her black skinny jeans to retrieve her cellphone. Without looking at the Caller ID, she flips it open, holding it to her ear. "Yellow?"

Freddie watches as her face contorts into pure confusion, brow furrowed. She bites her lip, shakes her head.

"I'll be right there." she states, and it's the first thing she's said since "Yellow". Her hand closes the phone and shoves it back into its place. She stands, a bit shaky, and Freddie follows suite.

"Sam. You okay? Who was that?"

"Yeah...yeah, I'm fine." she says, weary. He places a hand on each of her slender shoulders, looking straight into her oceanic blue eyes.

"Sam, you're not fine. Who was that on the phone?" Somehow, he knows just how to handle the situation, and it's easy for Sam to tell him.

"That was the hospital. They...they say there was an accident. Something having to do with my mom. They told me to get there as soon as I could. I-I have to go." She's obviously trying to be strong, but Freddie's studied her enough to know that the small crack in her voice at the end of her information is a major cry for help. He lets one hand drop while the other trails her arm, falling into place entwined with her own. He offers a small smile.

"I'll go with you. I got my driver's license last week."

"Your mom will kill you."

He chuckles. "Yeah, she probably will. You want a lift or what?"

She's grateful, so grateful she lets his hand stay held in hers.

As she sits in the passenger side of his new Honda CRV, twisting the hem of her "The Killers" band T-Shirt between her fingers, biting her lip, she's more anxious then she's ever been. She doesn't know exactly what happened. What if her mom is seriously injured? How would they pay for the bills? What if her mom caused someone to be seriously injured? Would they get sued?

A thousand questions run through her mind, each more drastic than the next.

What if she's--no. She refuses to let herself think that. Her mother, Renee Puckett, is _not_ dead.

But as much as she tries to convince herself of this, she can't ignore the empty feeling at the pit of her stomach.

It takes less time than she expected to reach the hospital, and he goes ahead and grabs her hand again. He squeezes it comfortingly. She leans against him ever-so-slightly. She's glad he's here with her when they enter the hospital, and he's the only thing that smells like home.

"I'm Sam Puckett. I was told to come here, something about my mother?" She tells the woman at the front desk. She smiles a bit.

"What is your mother's name?"

"Renee Puckett."

There's a small space of suspended silence. The woman has dark hair that falls to her chin, rectangular eyeglasses, small dark brown eyes, and a small nose. She stares at her computer screen for a moment, biting her lip, then turning to meet Sam's nervous glance.

"I'll have Dr. Saunders meet with you right away. Please, have a seat." She says, rushed, motioning towards a row of padded chairs. The blonde nods, giving her a small smile.

"Wow. I can't believe you were actually nice to her." Freddie whispers into her ear. It's a small attempt to bring out some of the Sam that's hiding, and she appreciates it more than she could ever tell him. She scoffs.

"I had to be. They're doctors here." She covers, sitting down, "Who knows what they could do to me."

He laughs. "That is _so_ true."

They don't wait long before a tall, tanned man with strong features and black, slightly shagged hair comes striding up to them.

"Samantha Puckett?" He inquires. She stands, nodding.

"That's me." Inside she feels weaker than she ever has, but her voice is as strong as ever. Her hand is gripped in Freddie's, however, he had no idea he's the only thing keeping her from falling to the ground.

"I'm Dr. Saunders. Come with me, please." he says. His voice is deep, sincere, calming. She figures it comes with experience. "Sir, could you please wait out here?" He's talking to Freddie, who scoffs.

"Yeah, right. I'm coming with her."

"Usually we only allow family." he says. He's stern, but Sam has rubbed off on Freddie over the years.

"I don't care what you usually do. I'm going with her." The oft times quite, soft-spoken geek is suddenly stern and demanding. His friend can't help but admire her own work as he walks with her down a bleak, white hallway.

"I'm impressed, Benson." she comments approvingly. He shrugs.

"Whatever Dr. Saunders is about to tell you, you shouldn't have to hear it alone."

At that, she drops it.

The doctor stops them at the door to a hospital room. Freddie notices they're in ICU, Sam doesn't.

"Ms. Puckett-"

"Sam." she immediately corrects, out of habit.

"Alright, Sam." He's obviously slightly awkward; the brunette figures he doesn't deal with teens often. "Your mother was in an extremely terrible car accident. Her car-"

"I don't care about how the freaking accident happened." she snaps. "Just tell me why the heck I'm here so I can leave. This place freaks me out."

He sighs. "When she was brought into us, she was in bad shape. She had major damage to her brain. We went ahead and attempted to do surgery when we couldn't reach anyone at your home to ask permission, but it didn't work. Right now, we have her on life support. However, I do not believe she's in a state to continue this. It's your choice. We can keep her on life support, even though it won't do much good in the end, or we can take her off."

She takes a majorly deep breath, bites her lip so hard she can taste blood.

"Take her off." she whispered, eyes set.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Just take her off. She shouldn't have to suffer any longer."

Sam then turns to leave, walking quickly. She doesn't get far before Freddie catches up with her, grabbing onto her wrist.

"Hey." he says. She whips around to face him, fire in her eyes, walls getting thicker by the second.

"What, Benson?" she spits. He's taken aback by the venom dripping from her words.

"Sam, you just took your mother off life support. She's dying right now." He tells her.

"Thanks for clearing that up. Would you let go of me now? I'm sure there's some sort of paperwork I have to sign. People can't just be left alone after they die."

Freddie stares into her eyes, searching for any inkling to how she really felt at that moment. He stares so hard, searches. He digs at ice, pounds at walls. His chocolate brown eyes soften.

"Sam." he mumbles, taking a step closer, "It's okay to cry."

It's her world, tumbling at her feet. Everything she'd been telling herself all these years...torn down to rot away with her mother's corpse in the ground. He says those 5 words, and she's a goner.

She falls into him as she's never done before, clinging to the back of his shirt, sobbing salty tears she hasn't tasted in 12 years. She collapses onto the ground, bringing him with her. She's crying the weight off her chest, crying the tears she should've cried a long time ago. She'd like to say she was just crying for her mother, but Freddie pulls her into his lap on the linoleum floor of a depressing hospital, and she's crying for her father, for her grandmother, for every single night her mother cried, for Carly, for all the times she's felt like a disappointment. She's crying for herself.

Sam Puckett falls into hysterics, and Freddie Benson holds her closer to him, burying his face in her blonde curls, gripping her tighter than ever. He rubs her back, kisses her forehead, lets her cry. He becomes everything she needed before this moment, but never knew she had. She lets go of everything that she's been harboring for so long, lets them float out on her tears, and he has absolutely no idea how she was ever able to carry them on her own.

It takes a while, but she eventually speaks. He wipes the tears away from her face as she tells him that she's missed her father since the very moment she watched him walk out her front door. She tells him about every single night she fell asleep to the sounds of her mother crying. She tells him about every time she's felt low, about every time she should have cried, but didn't because her walls and her father's words wouldn't let her. She tells him that she loved her mother more than anything because, while her mom wasn't the best mom in the world, she tried. She really did. She was Sam's best friend, and when it really hit her that that was gone, she fell into tears all over again.

Freddie doesn't mind though. He simply holds her. Whispers in her ear that everything will eventually be okay, and she believes him. She believes him more than she's ever believed in anything before. She presses her lips to his just for a moment because she's overjoyed that it was him who illegally drove her to the hospital that day. She does something she said she would never do again because she knows she will eventually have to face the world, but right now, she can just cry with the promise of someone being there to hold her.

No, Sam Puckett doesn't cry. But every once in a while, she lets go of that particular rule, as long as she knows that Freddie Benson is there to wipe away the tears when she does.

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End file.
